Blakeshire (4 page)

My mother had a reason for everything. She convinced me that I had watched
The Little Mermaid
days before and my mind was shifting through images and had managed to take my fears of the whispers, which I shouldn’t hear, if you ask me - and turn them into something tangible that I could see.

I bought that for a time
, that is, until every time I went near water, saltwater, I would see that woman.

Later, my best friend Charlie figured out how to make the whispers stop, or calm down at least. She taught the rest of us to use our ability to ‘see’ and figure out where these souls went wrong in their lives and remind them of a time they were loved; after that, they almost always moved on. Of course, more came, but at least they were nicer and we were now in charge of the curse. When Charlie taught me this, in the back of my mind I thought that maybe that woman was just a ghost that had died by the water and needed my help to move on. I never had the nerve to test that theory and stayed pretty much landlocked until a few days ago.

I saw that woman again. And she wasn’t in water. She was in the palace that Drake lives in.

The second I walked into that palace to save Drake and Landen, the boy that was with him, I heard that woman. I saw her. Her image was in every piece of artwork that had any water or sky within it, which was literally like every few feet. Not easy to deal with when you figured out that you have a celestial twin and the boy that should not be real
, was. What a disaster.

I tried talking to that image of the woman, used every trick in the book to get her to move on, but she wouldn’t. She just became more and more furious because I wouldn’t listen to her. Maybe I should have. I did get stabbed right after that, but still...something was off about that ghost.

The other shadows refused to go near her. She was all alone, standing within a vast sea of the damned. It was almost as if they feared her. Of course, my nasty habit of being obsessed with anything weird has left me to ponder this endlessly, on top of everything else.

Any time I go near that palace, I see her. Now, if she is
as evil as my gut is telling me, evil enough for the damned to shy away from her, and if she told me to run, then she was trying to get me away from something that she doesn’t want me to have—right? That is the way I see it anyway.

So what would my fate have to do with her? With water? And why was she, along with fate itself, trying to keep me away from that palace? Was it Drake? Was that what she was trying to keep me away from? Why? Maybe it was because the ghost that dominates that palace, Donalt, wanted Drake to love Willow. That thought alone made me sick to my stomach.

The palace was near the ocean, but I’d been that close to seawater before and not tormented by her. At one time, I thought maybe the entire existence was symbolic, that the octopus stood for something, the black water that was made of salt, but all of my research led me to nothing but dead ends. Which is why I just fell into rhythm with Charlie and the others, focused on what we could do, and tried to figure out why we could do what we could do. There were enough damned souls in this world to occupy any soul for a few lifetimes, but right now, in this near numb state, I’m almost sure that was supposed to be my distraction.

I have to figure out how to use this last blow to my advantage. And for a foolish, girlish second, I thought that maybe if I didn’t have the emotion of fear anymore that I would have the will to let Drake in, to let him see the real me, not the jealous, stubborn woman that was too afraid to tell him that he would always be my first and last obsession within this life.

I had to smile a little when I thought of last night. Even though I was in pain for most of it, Drake made me forget that; he made me forget because I couldn’t help but be absorbed by him, be nervous, curious and excited all at once. He was so freaking addictive.

Even though seeing was second nature to me, that at a glance I could see someone’s past, it was harder with him. I think it’s because he always has his guard up. I guess you have to if you are meant to rule a few billon souls and a demon is bartering to take over your body so he can have that rule.

The thing is, even though Drake was helping Willow, my twin, fight a master Escort and current ghost named Donalt, and my best friend Charlie was fighting another master Escort named Xavier—I think I have my own waiting on me.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure something sinister has been trying to steer me off course, and when my insights were amped up, I was distracted. If I were the enemy, I would have played this the same way—which leaves me to believe, broken or not, that I was given a gift tonight by Monroe.

That phantom woman that scared me as a child made a mistake. She chose to use fear to hide something from me. I suppose she thought that emotion would keep me away, but I don’t have that barricade anymore, which begs the question as to why I lost that emotion. Why Monroe was selective in which emotions she returned and which ones she took away from me.

I reached to rub my temples. As always, my mind had too many questions and the answers I found always led me to dig a little deeper: right back into obsession.

The knock on the door grew more intense. I breathed in. I didn’t smell anything beyond the soap that I had scrubbed every inch of body with. I hated going into that realm. I hated Escorts. I hated reaching into them and pulling their evil essence out. At least I used to hate that; now, I just didn’t want the stench of sulfur on me.

As hard as I had scrubbed, I was surprised I had any skin left. I tightened the towel around my body and let the one around my long, dark hair down.

Just as I managed to get the tangles out of my damp hair, Aden appeared. That was another gift my cousins and I shared, along with Charlie: if we had seen a place in someone’s thoughts, we could manifest there. I wasn’t sure exactly how we did that, if we were moving our souls or just projecting a tangible image of ourselves. Either way, that was one cool aspect of being abnormal.

Aden’s pensive, yet fierce stare dominated his deep green eyes. Even though Aden was an identical twin to his brother Draven, they were night and day. Aden was a hard-core drummer that showed no mercy with any beat he was given, but without his drums he was a philosopher, a deep thinker that often carried a concern with the words he spoke. Don’t get me wrong, he is very confident, fearless, but at the same time he is vastly overprotective to the point where he worries about crap that has not happen
ed yet. I guess I kinda do, too. Maybe that is why out of the two of my twin cousins, Aden was the one I fought with the most and got along with the best.

“Don’t tell me that I should have knocked because I have been knocking for an hour,” he said as he folded his arms across his broad chest and all but glared down at me.

I stared blankly at him, trying to test my senses. I was almost sure I could feel his concern, but then again I could just be judging his outward appearance, the warm, brotherly embrace his energy was extending in my direction.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of hot water,” I responded dryly.

“I don’t want a shower, Maddie.”

“I’m not a little girl anymore.
Madison
,” I corrected with no emotion in my voice.

“You’re acting like one, hiding in the bathroom.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m thinking.”

“Then we are going to think together.”

I let out a deep sigh. Before, when I began to say what was on my mind, grief and sorrow would halt the words from flowing. I couldn’t bear to walk away from the three people on this planet that I let get the closest to me, but my emotion of grief was on hiatus. “No, that is just it…I think we all need to go our own ways.”

“Have you lost your freaking mind?”

Yeah, that made him mad. I didn’t feel that emotion on the inside like I did before, more so on my skin; it was like a slight stabbing sensation. I could handle this far better than what I was enduring when I woke up this morning.

“Not my mind,” I breathed. Oddly, it felt so good to let that out, to finally say what had been in my head for a while.

The anger in his eyes faded and the concern took over as he took a seat on the edge of the tub. His dominant, square jawline flinched once. “What happened to you in The Realm?” I could see his green eyes shift to black, and I knew he was seeing the answer to his question; my perception of it anyway.

I flinched, remembering seeing fire consume Monroe as I remembered having no regard for my own life. That girl was special, and my gut was telling me that the best way to protect her now would be to follow my own path.

“Nothing,” I said as I prepared to sum up what had happened. I didn’t want him to worry about me. Before, I would have seen his energy and felt his emotion, but now I could only judge his image, which was crystal clear without all the auras invading my line of sight. “I threw a few damned souls into the real world, was pulled into a war zone. Saw Monroe in trouble, saved her, and then—voila, we came home and I’ve been enjoying an everlasting hot bath.”

“You hate water,” he bit out, choosing not to press me on the actions I’d taken or the results of those actions.

I stared at him, trying to evaluate how damaged my insights were. Normally, I would see something like a movie playing out around him; now I could only see flashes of what he went through in The Realm. It didn’t seem like he’d had any more fun than I did. I kinda like this new way of seeing. I’m a deep analyzer; the more information, the more I analyzed. Flashes were good; less food for thought. They gave me just enough to get a grip on what was going on and not enough to distract me from the moment I was in.

I smirked. It was no secret that I hated water, but no one knew why. Charlie would go off to meet Aden and Draven at random beaches for the summer. I rarely went, and when I did I kept at least two hundred feet between me and the ocean.

Yesterday was the first time I had been on a boat
ever
, and when I agreed to play the role of a girl who was courting Drake to help fool the court he was at war with, I didn’t know there was a boat involved. When I figured that part out, it was too late to back out. Every time I tried, they all thought I was just scared of Drake, which was true, too, but I would have moved in with the boy just to avoid the boat. Lesser of two evils, if you will.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad fear of Drake, it’s a good one. Just imagine having a crush on someone for nearly two decades, and then all of a sudden they know your name and show a vague interest. Now, that is petrifying. I clenched my waist again as I thought of him, as I thought of that burn he gave my soul; it was a good burn, one that even now, as damaged as I may be, I ached to feel more deeply. But I would be damned if I let him or anyone else know that.

“The question is why do I hate it. Maybe it’s because something dark and twisted knows that the weapon I need to end it is in saltwater.”

Aden moved his head from side to side as his eyes rained down on me. “
Considering the planet is seventy percent water and we have recently been made aware of countless alternate dimensions, I would say that you need to let that thought go and fight what is in front of you. Work on healing.”

“I’m not sick.”

He clenched his fist as he leaned forward on his knees. “Emotions are your gift, your weapon. If you don’t have them, then you are sick on some supernatural level. We need to fix that.”

“I
have
emotions. I’m just lacking a few that seem to have gotten in my way.”

“Like?” he said with a firm stare.

“Fear, shock, anguish…grief.”

He nodded once, and I could swear I saw flashes of Drake in his mind. Aden wasn’t the matchmaker type, and he would not let anyone near me without harsh judgment, but he, like everyone else, thought that there was a reason I was drawn into Drake’s life, that I had a twin. That in some way that dark dimension was waiting for me. Right now, Aden was relieved that I was still capable of feeling compassion, maybe even love.

“Well, I guess that might be an improvement. Hours ago, we could not sit in traffic without you doubling over in pain.”

“And that sucked.”

“No doubt,” he said as he massaged his temples.

“You’re the one that is sick, with the wall knocked down in your head.”

Apparently, we have all had a lot of past lives, and some evil little Escort thought it would be best for Aden to remember his. I’m sure it was so that he and his brother would fight over Charlie, but evil underestimated the four of us. We don’t do love triangles or squares or any other twisted amorous deal. Aden’s twin may be a jealous soul, but he knows where Charlie’s devotion lies. So the knockdown in Aden’s mind didn’t do anything but give Aden more to think about.

“It wasn’t knocked down—barely a crack really, one that was supposed to twist us,” he said as anger flared in his eyes and I felt his energy stabbing my skin. It was no secret that my cousins were easy on the eyes, but their anger seemed to amplify everything that was addictive about them. God help anyone that stood between them and something they wanted or cared about.

“Aden, this is a crossroads. This is the point where we all go fight our own demons.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” he said under his breath, making it clear that he was not going anywhere.